Startling Data Shocks Dentists

by Joanne Bishop . 01/07/2019

Are you losing as many patients … as you’re gaining? …Are you up overall … or in a negative position?

It’s a scary thought. We work hard to attract and onboard new clients. We have our processes in place, we offer fantastic services and servicing … we have effective processes in place for our teams … as business owners and managers, we assume that things are rocking and rolling as planned and clients are satisfied and are staying connected to us.

But what if that’s not the case? As we analyze more and more practice metrics, I must share the most shocking thing dentists and office managers find out.

They have dramatically OVERESTIMATED the number of patients scheduled to come back.

If you could see your data right now – you’d be amazed that your “guess” will be roughly 30% HIGHER than actual.

YOU NEED TO GET YOUR NUMBERS TODAY! CLICK HERE to find out how we can show you your stats now.

That startling scheduling revelation leaves dentists and their office managers FLABBERGASTED. And, it’s usually accompanied by this shocking reveal…

This is a real practice that we just onboarded and are helping to regain momentum. The black-and-white visibility into their practice results allowed them to immediately take action.

Despite adding an IMPRESSIVE 2,000 new patients in the last year, overall they’re DOWN by 450 patients! They LOST 2,400 patients. Twenty-four hundred! At an average annual value of $1,000 – that’s a quick $2.4 million in production – GONE.

When you connect to Practice ZEBRA™, these stats are at your fingertips.

Loyal patients are worth up to 10x as much as their first purchase. So that means, if your new-patient average is $1,500-$1,800 like our average client, each patient has the potential to spend $10-20k with you over their lifetime – meaning it’s super important to keep them connected to you.

Right now, every dental practice has patients sliding out of “active” status, simply because they have lapsed. Why? Perhaps perceived indifference by your practice for the patient’s business, perhaps lack of scheduling and/or lack of touchpoints besides transactional. They may not have selected another dentist, but they’re not connected to you either.

Gaining patient long-term trust can take up to TWELVE positive experiences – and more, if there’s a need to make up for ONE unresolved negative experience.

Have you identified when and why patients drop off?

Do you know, right now, how many patients have a scheduled appointment to come back?

To maximize practice production – and PROFITS – a dental practice must take care of patients ALL THE TIME, not just when they’re in the office. Do your patients believe you care about them? They might when you have them in your chair … but outside of your office?

The #1 reason patients leave is perceived indifference. Maybe you were distracted by another more difficult case the last time they were in. Perhaps your receptionist was having a stressful day and didn’t smile at exit. Perhaps the hygienist didn’t make them feel important. Whatever the reason, we all can “perceive” when a business isn’t appreciating our business and that’s NOT GOOD when it comes to dentistry, because as consumers, we have a lot of choice.

On average, more dental offices have LESS THAN 50% of patients scheduled to come back. MORE THAN HALF of your patients may NOT BE CONNECTED to you right now.

And you might think your automated reminders are doing the trick, but they won’t if you don’t have 100% of cell and email contacts, and NONE OF YOU DO.

Tools you can use to enhance your patient relationships and keep patients connected to you at this stage are the good old “patient newsletter,” email newsletters, referral and reactivation campaigns, and scheduling and loyalty campaigns.

Step One – Get your metrics. Practice ZEBRA™, connected to the practice management software you already use, will give you the black-and-white visibility you need to know EXACTLY where your practice is at for scheduling active and new patients, and what your overall gain/loss trends look like. With this data, you can put action plans in place to recapture the production you’re losing.

Step Two – Invest in your patient loyalty campaigns. Mailing a patient newsletter every other month and/or emailing a patient newsletter every month is a MINIMAL investment. MINIMAL – but the return to your practice could mean hundreds of thousands in production. If you’re not mailing a patient newsletter, why aren’t you? Seriously, the average patient annual value is $1,000 … you usually have at least 2 people in each household … so each household is worth at least $2,000 to you … and the investment to mail into those homes is in the range of $12 per year. A $12 investment to save $2,000+++ and referrals. Isn’t that worth it?

Joanne Bishop

As Senior Vice President, Joanne has 20+ years of dental marketing and business development experience. She holds a Degree in Marketing Management/Strategic Marketing from York University and Advertising from Centennial College. She’s fired up about Patient News and all the ways we can help dentists and their teams succeed.